Treatment of Audiences

Different ways of looking at audiences

Shaun Moores - Interpreting Audiences and http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/pph9701.html

The effects model
-The hypodermic syringe model

This was proposed by the Frankfurt school established 1923

they saw 'society to be composed of isolated individuals who were susceptible to media messages'

Since then, theorists have in dismissed this to an extent, and it is seen as an inadequate representation of the relationship between the individual and the media. It is seen now as much more complex

David gauntlett details the 'ten things wrong with the effects model' on this site:

http://www.theory.org.uk/tenthings.htm

1. The effects model tackles social problems 'backwards': simplifying the causes
2. The effects model treats children as inadequate: their intelligence is underestimated
3. Assumptions within the effects model are characterised by barely-concealed conservative ideology

4. The effects model inadequately defines its own objects of study

5. The effects model is often based on artificial elements and assumptions within studies

6. The effects model is often based on studies with misapplied methodology

7. The effects model is selective in its criticisms of media depictions of violence

8. The effects model assumes superiority to the masses

9. The effects model makes no attempt to understand meanings of the media

10. The effects model is not grounded in theory

'Audiences are not blank sheets of paper on which media messages can be written; members of an audience will have prior attitudes and beliefs which will determine how effective media messages are. (Abercrombie 1996, 140)'

Supporters of the Effects model assume the audience is passive in the receiving and interpretation of media texts. This problem is highlighted in David Gauntletts ten things wrong with the effects model; points 2, 3, and 9

The uses and Gratifications model

Jay G. Blumler and Elihu Katz devised their uses and gratifications model to highlight four areas of gratification in media texts for audiences. These include:

Personal identity — for example, characters in soap operas experiencing something the audience once did.

Personal relationships — a media text provides information for 'water-cooler talk' at work with colleagues, what's happening in the latest reality TV show?
Surveillance — lets the audience know what is happening in the world, for example print and broadcast news.
Diversion — a media text which provides escapism for the audience, for example a holiday programme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uses_and_Gratifications

Problems with this model:

The model still implies that messages are packages of information that all the audience will read as the same. It does not consider how the messages are interpreted or any other factors affecting the audience’s interpretation.

Both the Effects and the Uses and Gratifications model ignore to some extent the audience and their social backgrounds, how they form their interpretations of the media messages and their specific relationship with the media text.

'Screen Theory'

Screen theory suggested that all media texts have a "mode of address" – a term used by semioticians which proposes that media texts address its intended audience in a particular way, establishing a relationship between the producer of the text and the media’s audience. The mode of address is dependant on the particular medium. For instance, cinema rarely addresses the audience directly. Films are usually shot to suggest the film is reality. In comedy characters occasionally look into the camera. Recently there has be a trend in which films have become self-reflexive, drawing on and manipulating the conventions of the audience’s expectations of the medium. The "Scream" films are a good example of this. Television differs from cinema, as the audience are not expected to pay the attention which cinema demands, so television has to work to attain and maintain the audience’s attention.